Centivax Raises $10M Seed Investment by NFX and GHIC to Develop Universal Vaccine Technology for Influenza, COVID-19, HIV, and Other Infectious Diseases

Centivax, a broad-spectrum vaccine platform technology company, today announced $10M in seed financing in a syndicate co-led by NFX and the Global Health Investment Corporation (GHIC). The funding will be used to initiate manufacturing of its lead broad-spectrum vaccine program in influenza for first-in-human clinical trials, as well as continue development of its broad-spectrum vaccine platform technology in other critical areas of unmet global health need, including coronavirus (COVID-19) and HIV/AIDS.

The Problem: Ever-Mutating Infectious Diseases

Since the first vaccines were developed, humanity has been in a constant battle to keep up with evolving viruses that evade protection. The current seasonal flu vaccine is sometimes only 10% effective due to the ever-mutating nature of the virus. This issue has proven increasingly costly and deadly in the fight against COVID-19, with new variants emerging on a near-monthly basis that deteriorate the effectiveness of vaccination and force vaccine developers to update their formulas.

“The recent pandemic demonstrated how deadly and costly infectious diseases can be,” explained Omri Amirav-Drory, General Partner at NFX. “Centivax’s platform has the potential to eradicate infectious diseases like the flu and COVID in the same way we’ve eradicated smallpox, saving millions of lives each year. This reason alone is an easy decision to invest in this extraordinary team and technology.”

Centivax’s Solution: A Universal Vaccine Platform that aims to Eradicate Diseases

While universal vaccines have been the goal of immunologists for decades, the technology has only recently been made possible due to breakthroughs in computational immunology, high-throughput sequencing, and vaccine research. Centivax’s technology is built on nearly ten years of research and development into the formation of antibody responses to create universal vaccines that are resilient in the face of pathogen mutation and evolution. Centivax’s platform is designed to teach the immune system to target critical regions of viral spike proteins that the viruses are not able to mutate. The technology platform is compatible with, and IP covers, major vaccine delivery technologies including well established recombinant protein-based vaccines, VLPs, and recent mRNA platforms.

“Universal vaccines represent a holy grail of the vaccine world. The ability to generate broad-spectrum immunity from one vaccine would be a paradigm shift in how we protect against critical health security threats, including pandemic influenza and coronavirus,” said Damien Soghoian, PhD., Partner at GHIC. “With an extraordinary founding team and extremely unique technology, we believe Centivax is well-positioned to tackle this challenge.”

Centivax plans to use the new funding to scale its team and operations to bring lifesaving universal vaccines to market as soon as possible, starting with completing key pre-IND studies and initiating manufacturing to advance towards first-in-human clinical trials. The Centivax portfolio first targets the three rapidly mutating pathogens responsible for the most infections and deaths in humans: seasonal and pandemic influenza viruses(flu), coronaviruses (COVID-19), and HIV(AIDS). The 2027 estimated markets for the first three Centivax vaccines are $11.3 billion for flu, $12.4 billion for COVID-19, and $0.7-13.4 billion for HIV. Centivax also plans to develop vaccines for diseases affecting livestock, a 2027 market estimated to be worth more than $4.4 billion.

“More than ever, the last few years have clearly shown us that the world needs broad-spectrum vaccines to fight rapidly mutating pathogens,” said Jacob Glanville, CEO and Co-Founder of Centivax. “With the mission-aligned investment by NFX and GHIC, we initiate manufacturing of our first broad-spectrum influenza vaccine for first-in-human clinical trials while continuing development of our universal vaccine platform for other key strategic areas, including into broad-spectrum vaccines for coronaviruses and HIV.”

To learn more about Centivax and its platform, please visit: https://www.centivax.com/

About Centivax

Centivax is a broad-spectrum vaccine platform technology company. Founded by leading experts in pharmaceutical development, immunology, vaccine science, computational biology, and broadly neutralizing antibody engineers, the Centivax is on a mission to accelerate the world’s transition to a post-pathogen humanity.

The patented broad-spectrum vaccine platform has demonstrated unprecedented breadth of protection from influenza in ferrets and pigs. Centivax platform development has been backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Naval Medical Research Center, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium, the Department of Defense, the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, NFX, and the Global Health Investment Corporation.

About NFX

NFX is the world’s largest venture firm dedicated exclusively to pre-seed and seed stage companies. The firm is based in San Francisco, California and Herzlia, Israel, and invests in network-effects driven startups. Founded by entrepreneurs who built 10 companies with more than $10 billion in exits across multiple industries and regions, NFX is transforming how true innovators are funded. Learn more at www.nfx.com.

About GHIC

A pioneer of investing in global health, GHIC has been supporting high impact biomedical innovations for nearly a decade. Our inaugural Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF) financed the development of products to combat public health challenges that disproportionately affect people living in low- and middle-income countries. In 2021, GHIC entered into a 10-year venture investment partnership with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) focused on global health security. See here: https://ghicfunds.org/news/

Contact:

For Business-related inquiries: stephanie@centivax.com


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Riley Munks

Media Contact

NFX for Centivax

riley@nfx.com